Lovers and Other Strangers

I have been searching for this for years and finally found it on DVD. It is well worth seeing though not quite as funny as I once thought it was. It doesn't all work but the parts that do are great.

A young couple (Michael Brandon and Bonnie Bedelia) are about to get married but have not told their parents that they have been secretly living together. The supporting cast is great, many of them achieved bigger fame in TV. Anne Meara plays a frustrated wife whose husband (Harry Guardino) is not interested in sex anymore. The father of the bride (Gig Young) is a "with it" guy who does not believe in the Generation Gap. He is also cheating on his wife (Cloris Leachman) with a hysterical Anne Jackson. Bob Dishy is a lecherous usher who is desperately trying to bed a spacey bridesmaid (Marian Hailey). Best of all Beatrice Arthur and Richard Castellano (nominated for an Oscar for this) are the Italian Catholic parents of the groom. Their chemistry is hilarious and they also find out their other married son is looking to divorce his wife (played by Diane Keaton). Castellano is so old fashioned he threatens to give his 30 year old son a beating with his belt! There are two interesting bits by uncredited Conrad Bain and Jerry Stiller. Bain plays a priest who hears the confession of his future "Maude" co star Bea Arthur. Stiller (Anne Meara's real life husband) plays a wedding guest. The beautiful song "For All We Know" won the Oscar, it was later a big hit for the Carpenters.

Classic comedy with legendary comedians (e.g. Stiller and Meara.) Imagine holding up and being topical for more than 35 years! While the superb writing as mentioned holds up fantastically, the 60's style also adds to the overall pleasure of this movie. Do you get the feeling I like this flick! Do yourself a favor and take the time to watch this when you get the opportunity. Check out the cast and see just how amazing an impact this movie had - Bea Arthur year before being cast as Maude in All in the Family (Conrad Bain in small role, to be linked as Maude's neighbor within a couple of years of the movies release.) And the casting director, was he prophetic or what, see how many appeared for the first time in a movie here, Diane Keaton of course, but how about Sly Stallone as an extra, Jerry Stiller, etc, etc.

Quite a few reviewers accuse this film of being dated. But when I first saw it in 1970, it already defied that idea because it saw through the zeitgeist. Rather than getting mired in passing fads and causes, the writers fondly made light of the clash of generations. Writers Joe Bologna and Renée Taylor exaggerate the tensions and conversations in the two families of the engaged couple, as well as the period fashions and furnishings, just enough to make the film entertaining, but also witty and touching.

The movie spares nobody. Hidebound Italian Catholics, bourgeois suburbanites, a macho ex-marine married to a feminist, an usher seducing a bridesmaid, counterculture cohabitation-- the superb cast delivers it all. Superficially, they all represent stereotypes, but-- and here's the trick-- they also defy simplistic categories they are unique individuals, and you cannot predict what any of them will say or do next. No Archie Bunkers or Meatheads here.

It's not Balzac, but it is a classic human comedy realized as popular art, two families afloat in the late '60s, when parents thought they were losing their offspring, because their kids were questioning traditions. But those kids were questioning ingrained habits, not traditional virtues, the deep values and ethics that form our larger society. "No gap here," is the refrain of Gig Young, a buffoonish patriarch determined to keep everybody happy-- but ultimately he's right. They all have more in common than they know, and by the time the young couple is married, we don't have to be told that their marriage will be every bit as complicated as their parents' are. The movie already told us.

If the movie has a core, it's Richard Castellano's speech to his elder son who is about to divorce his wife, an unthinkable first in the family. Castellano (in the same role he played in the original Broadway play) got an Oscar nomination, and he's wonderful throughout, but especially delivering the speech that becomes the spoken soul of the movie. It includes: "We're all strangers. But after a while you get used to it. You become deeper strangers. That's a sort of love."

I saw this movie when it first came out, and I hadn't seen it for more than 30 years. Imagine my delight to pick it up for $8 at the DVD store and watch it again. Of course Diane Keaton was lovely in her first film, but I'll bet more people were surprised to remember how beautiful Bonnie Bedelia was at age 22. Some of the 1970 stuff wears a little thin, and of course it's sad to remember what happened to Gig Young, but all in all, this was a wonderful time capsule of a movie. And yes, "For All We Know" was part of the music the first time I got married -- in 1975. I wish I could find more movies from this time period in DVD. Of course, they are all starting to come out slowly. Too bad the DVD didn't have any extras, even the trailer.

Mike (Michael Brandon) and Susan (Bonnie Bedelia) are getting married. The movie deals with them and their various families preparing the wedding. Bedelia's parents are played by Gig Young and Cloris Leachman--and Young is sleeping with a cousin played by Anne Jackson. Mike's parents are played by Beatrice Arthur and Richard Castellano who hate each other. Also Mike's brother Richie is divorcing his wife played by Diane Keaton (in her film debut). There's also Jerry and Brenda who just date for the wedding--and fall in love and Anne Meara and Harry Guardino as a couple constantly bickering over who's the boss. Meara's husband Jerry Stiller also appears unbilled and her daughter Amy (who is billed).

As you can see there's a LOT going on in this film--you're never bored. It is very dated--the talks about sex, marriage, relationships and male and female roles are VERY 1960s...but they are quite interesting. The script is sharp and the characters believable and there are funny lines flying nonstop throughout the movie. It's also amusing to see how Mike and Susan are living together before they get married--but can't tell any of their parents as it would kill them! Some of the sexual stereotypes get to be a bit much (Guardino especially is just appalling) but that's a sign of the times. A song in this movie ("For All We Know") won the Academy Award for Best Song at the Oscars but it's sung by a man here not the Carpenters (who had a BIG hit with it).

This was originally rated R for the frank (for the time) sex talk, a flash of nudity and some mild swearing. It's PG now but I wouldn't let kids watch it--it's not too dirty they just wouldn't understand it.

Bssically a fun movie with an outstanding cast. Worth seeing.